As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One approach to the design and implementation of information handling systems for computer networks, particularly with regard to the development of client/server applications, includes designing client applications and client terminals so that the majority of the heavily used resources are at a remote computing machine, such as a centralized server, connected via a network. The client terminals generally have minimal memory, disk storage, and processor power, but are designed under the premise that most users connected to a powerful server do not need the additional processing power. With these client terminals, the total cost of ownership is minimized, because of the reduced resources and because the clients can be centrally administered and updated from the server. As such, these client terminals are suited for a network that can handle a significant number of terminals. If the client terminals have devices attached to them, then when the client terminals are connected to the server, not only the client terminals but also the client terminals' devices can become available to the server.
Some information handling systems have externally connected mass storage devices, such as universal serial bus (USB) mass storage devices, that have been redirected. One of the ways to protect the USB mass storage device from malicious software or improper access is to restrict the write-access to the USB mass storage device at the server where the device has been virtualized. That is, the USB mass storage device is seen as a read-only device by any information handling system that attempts to access the virtual device. Using current technology, all redirected USB mass storage devices that have been virtualized, such as a USB mass storage device that has been redirected to a particular server, must all be designated as read-only for all users regardless of a particular user's access permissions. Thus, a need exists to selectively restrict the write-access for certain USB mass storage devices.